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Article
Publication date: 1 April 2002

R. Jayakanthan

The computer gaming industry has today become bigger than the world music and movie industries. The influence of computer games over the youth of today is akin to that of the…

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Abstract

The computer gaming industry has today become bigger than the world music and movie industries. The influence of computer games over the youth of today is akin to that of the cultural influence of music, political movements and even religion on youth culture of the past. Of late, computer games have been attracting people of all kinds into using computers. They have driven the spread of computers into the lives of individuals who had earlier had no incentive to use them. Computer games are gaining unprecedented access to the homes, minds and souls of people today. Hence it has become increasingly important for game developers and educators to study the application of computers for enhancing the education offered to the next generation of students. Computer games can be used to give a better form of education and can even make computers become the unique tools of learning. The paper will present the current scenarios of computer games being used for the purposes of education and training. It will also dwell on areas in which the tremendous capabilities of computer games as an education medium can be utilized in educating a new generation of students weaned on computer games. New possibilities for computer games as tools of knowledge will also be projected.

Details

The Electronic Library, vol. 20 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 May 2005

David Coyle, Mark Matthews, John Sharry, Andy Nisbet and Gavin Doherty

Although mental health problems increase markedly during adolescent years, therapists often find it difficult to engage with adolescents. The majority of disturbed adolescents do…

Abstract

Although mental health problems increase markedly during adolescent years, therapists often find it difficult to engage with adolescents. The majority of disturbed adolescents do not receive professional mental health care and of those who do fewer still will fully engage with the therapeutic process (Offer et al. 1991; US Surgeon General 1999). Personal Investigator (PI) is a 3D computer game specifically designed to help adolescents overcome mental health problems such as depression and help them engage more easily with professional mental health care services. PI is an implementation of a new computer mediated model for how therapists and adolescents can engage. The model has its theoretical foundations in play therapy and therapeutic storytelling and applies current research on the educational use of computer gaming and interactive narrative systems to these foundations. Previously demonstrated benefits of computer games and interactive narrative systems in education include increased motivation, increased self‐esteem, improved problem solving and discussion skills and improved storytelling skills (Bruckman 1997; Bers 2001; Robertson 2001; Robertson and Oberlander 2002; Bers et al. 2003; Squire 2003). PI aims to take advantage of these benefits in a mental health care setting. PI incorporates a goal‐oriented, strengths based model of psychotherapy called Solution Focused Therapy (SFT). By engaging adolescents, in a client‐centred way, it aims to build stronger therapeutic relationships between therapists and adolescents. PI is the first game to integrate this established psychotherapy approach into an engaging online 3D game. Results of trials of PI with four adolescents, referred to clinics for issues including anxiety and behaviour problems, attempted suicide, and social skills difficulties, are presented.

Details

Interactive Technology and Smart Education, vol. 2 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1741-5659

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 17 May 2013

Barbro Fröding and Martin Peterson

The purpose of this paper is to argue that playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, even in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to argue that playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, even in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important, can be an integral part of human flourishing.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors' claim is based on a modern reading of Aristotle's Nichomacean Ethics. It should be emphasized that the authors do not argue that computer gaming and other similar online activities are central to all people under all circumstances; but only seek to show that the claim holds true for some people under some circumstances and the authors try to spell out the relevant circumstances in detail.

Findings

The authors provide a list of situations in which playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important, is an integral part of human flourishing.

Originality/value

The paper puts some novel pressure on the widely‐held belief that playing computer games for lengthy periods of time, in a manner that will force the player to forgo certain other activities normally seen as more important. The paper claims that playing some computer games and partaking in some forms of online activities could be highly conducive to what it actually means in practice to take care of oneself and, to paraphrase Aristotle, to be eager for fine actions.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 11 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 22 November 2012

Wei Lian Tan

E-learning has the potential to engage learners in ways that is not possible in a conventional classroom environment. Nevertheless, for this unique capability of e-learning to be…

Abstract

E-learning has the potential to engage learners in ways that is not possible in a conventional classroom environment. Nevertheless, for this unique capability of e-learning to be optimised, a good understanding of learners’ need as to what motivate them to be engaged in activities is paramount. This chapter suggests strategies for engaging learners in e-learning based on past empirical studies on computer games characteristics and an exploratory study on values influencing learners’ decisions to engage in activities. The exploratory study in this chapter adopted qualitative research methods of Kelly Repertory grid and laddering interview based on the means-end chain (MEC) theory. Based on the exploratory study, value dimension was added to the existing literature. The value dimension of excitement, warm relationship with others and sense of accomplishment were revealed as important to learners in their decision whether to engage in activities. Strategies for e-learning instructions that promote the revealed values were suggested with the aim of integrating the value dimension with the existing literature as well as proven teaching approaches.

Details

Increasing Student Engagement and Retention Using Immersive Interfaces: Virtual Worlds, Gaming, and Simulation
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-241-7

Abstract

Details

Games in Everyday Life: For Play
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-937-8

Book part
Publication date: 19 September 2012

Björn Sjöblom and Karin Aronsson

Purpose – The aim of the present chapter is to analyse episodes of dispute and conflict in co-located computer gaming. The main purpose is to extend prior research on…

Abstract

Purpose – The aim of the present chapter is to analyse episodes of dispute and conflict in co-located computer gaming. The main purpose is to extend prior research on dispute-interaction to a computer mediated setting.

Methodology – Naturally occurring multiplayer computer gaming was video recorded in Internet cafés (28 hours). A single case was selected that involved a series of escalating disputes over the course of 45 minutes of gaming. The social interaction involved – of two 16-year-old boys playing World of Warcraft – was analysed using conversation analytical procedures.

Findings – The sequential analyses show how the two players engaged in disputes at the points where one or both of the players’ avatars had been killed. The players held each other accountable for their in-game performance, and avatar death was a central event in which gaming competence was contested, often in outright confrontations. Such disputes, where each player attempted to present the other as inferior, were used for negotiating player identities in what Goffman (1967) has called character contests. In gaming, players thus risk losing the game as well as their social standings. Disputes were also linked to the variable stakes of the game: with more at stake, players were more likely to escalate conflicts to the point of even quitting the game altogether.

Originality – The chapter shows how disputes are central components in adolescents’ computer gaming, and how they both structure the players’ intersubjective understanding of the game, and how they play a role in local identity work.

Details

Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-877-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 February 1984

Carol A. Emmens

For the last two years the prices of Atari's games and computers have dropped so much that the company was forced to dump—literally—thousands of dollars worth of games and…

Abstract

For the last two years the prices of Atari's games and computers have dropped so much that the company was forced to dump—literally—thousands of dollars worth of games and equipment. According to an article in The New York Times (September 28, 1983), faced with a major slump in the sale of video games and a loss of $310.5 million in the second quarter of 1983, Atari dumped 14 truckloads of games and computer equipment into a landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico. However, in spite of the decreasing sales of video games and decreasing attendance at arcades, attendance and circulation are up at the handful of libraries around the country that own/loan video games.

Details

Collection Building, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0160-4953

Book part
Publication date: 19 September 2012

Christina Davidson

Purpose – This chapter examines disputes produced by two young children during computer game playing and considers how the disputes were related to the children's ongoing…

Abstract

Purpose – This chapter examines disputes produced by two young children during computer game playing and considers how the disputes were related to the children's ongoing activity.

Methodology/approach – The study is framed by ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Sequential analysis of recorded data details the mutual production of disputes during talk and interaction.

Findings – The analysis establishes how the children made each other accountable to the agreed-upon way of playing the game after one child offered to show the other how to play. Conflict developed during the game and disputes built upon previous disputes, especially in relation to claims made about knowing how to play.

Research implications – The disputes here are best understood in relation to how disagreement was avoided initially but then emerged as the gaming progressed. Examining disputes in the course of computer activity shows how the children turn agreement into disagreement over time.

Social implications – This study establishes some of the ways that disputes arise out of young children's social interactions during computer game playing and how disputes are related, or not, to shared understandings of what is going on moment by moment in the game.

Originality – Overall, this chapter provides a detailed sequential analysis across computer activity and establishes how the children's disputes challenge the order of game playing as the game progresses.

Details

Disputes in Everyday Life: Social and Moral Orders of Children and Young People
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-877-9

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 1990

Moshe Sherer

Games were used in social work, especially in group work, for many years (Abels & Abels, 1985; Zayas & Lewis, 1986). Games are recognized as a necessary part of human development…

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Abstract

Games were used in social work, especially in group work, for many years (Abels & Abels, 1985; Zayas & Lewis, 1986). Games are recognized as a necessary part of human development and thus have many applications in professional life (Dromi & Krampf, 1986). Computers became a growing source of help in our profession. Among their new applications they are used as games machines for educational or therapeutic purposes (Resnick & Sherer, 1989). This article deals with computerized games in social work. We will focus our attention on the current state of this art, analyze its potential applications in various fields of social work, and as an example introduce one such game and discuss its potential use.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. 10 no. 4/5/6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Article
Publication date: 1 June 2015

Chen-Shu Wang, Yu-Chieh Li and Yeu-Ruey Tzeng

The purpose of this paper is to propose a game-based learning (GBL) content design model that replicates the two-dimensional Bloom cognitive process in GBL units. The proposed…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a game-based learning (GBL) content design model that replicates the two-dimensional Bloom cognitive process in GBL units. The proposed model, called the knowledge and cognitive-process representation (KCR) model, enables a game player to access three types of Bloom knowledge by allowing the learner to experience-related cognitive processes that can be replicated in the GBL units via appropriate representation approaches.

Design/methodology/approach

To validate the feasibility of the proposed KCR model, 14 GBL units for a Cisco-certified network associate (CCNA) certification training program were designed and installed on several servers. Players played the GBL units via internet browsers. According to the problem-solving theory, three game components, including a tool, feedback, and goal, are necessary for game playing and should be adopted to implement three sub-cognitive processes. A three-phase experiment was performed for one year. Subjects were university sophomores and a randomized block experiment design was implemented.

Findings

The experimental results show that, compared with a traditional web-based learning platform, the GBL platform is more efficient and it enables learners to achieve improved learning performance. In addition, most hypotheses support the fact that particular cognizance processes should be implemented by a specific representation approach in GBL. Finally, a KCR model for GBL content design is inferred to represent a cognitive process appropriately that can be referenced for both the digital content instructor and the game developer.

Research limitations/implications

Because the CCNA training material does not include meta-knowledge of Bloom knowledge type and the creation of the Bloom cognitive process, the KCR model should be further extended. In addition, others certification training materials (such as Oracle DBA, Java programmer) can be implemented on the basis of the KCR model for general validation as further research.

Practical implications

Players can acquire specific types of knowledge, such as factual knowledge, by experiencing a particular cognitive process, such as the “remembering & understanding” processes, which can be represented with a computer tool. The KCR model can provide both the instructor and the game developer with design recommendations and accelerate GBL content implementation.

Originality/value

GBL is a learning platform that can stimulate a learner by improving the motivation to learn and the learning experience. To ensure high-learning performance, the learner should perform specific cognitive processes and acquire knowledge. This research proposes a content design model for GBL units that appropriately replicate the Bloom framework in a computer game.

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